The Good Turn

by Dervla McTiernan

  Peter grimaced. He opened the fridge, contemplated the remaining beers. No. He took two clean glasses down from the kitchen cupboard, poured a generous measure of whiskey into each, and offered one to Aoife. She took it.

  ‘You haven’t told me everything, have you?’ she asked.

  He shook his head slowly, gazed into his whiskey, then knocked half of it back. ‘Nope.’

  ‘Well then?’

  ‘Murphy offered me a choice. He said I could go on suspension pending the outcome of the investigation, or I could take a transfer until everything is resolved.’

  ‘That sounds promising,’ Aoife said, though she had obviously picked up something in his tone. Her eyes were serious, focused on him, trying to read his expression.

  ‘It seems that a garda sergeant in good standing is willing to take me under his wing, supervise me closely, teach me everything Reilly failed to teach me.’

  The sarcasm silenced her. She waited for him to fill her in.

  ‘Roundstone. They want to send me to Roundstone. To Dad.’

  ‘Jesus,’ Aoife said. ‘Des.’

  ‘Yep. According to Murphy he got in touch. Vouched for me. Claimed I was led astray, and a bit of redirection and appropriate supervision would get me back on track.’

  ‘You said no,’ Aoife said.

  Peter knocked back the rest of the whiskey.

  ‘You didn’t agree, Peter. Tell me you didn’t say yes.’

  ‘He shouldn’t even have been able to manage it. He’s my father. It’s clearly against regulations, me reporting to him. But that’s Des for you. He’s always got some friend willing to look the other way.’

  Peter reached for the whiskey bottle, poured another measure. Aoife watched him fill his glass. She knocked back her own drink, made a face at the harshness of the liquor, then held out her own glass for a refill.

  ‘There was a murder, a few months back. The investigation was taken over by a Dublin team, but there’s a mountain of paperwork that needs to be cleaned up, and Des thinks I’d be just perfect for that.’

  ‘Tell me you said no.’

  ‘I didn’t have a choice,’ Peter said. ‘Murphy made it very clear. I go to Roundstone, and he’ll keep the wolves at bay. Assuming they can prove that Kelly was the man who took Peggah, Murphy will use whatever influence he has to make sure that the Section 91 is the end of it. But if I said no, kicked up a fuss, I’m on suspension and he washes his hands of me. The investigation becomes a criminal one and I could go to prison.’

  ‘He said all that?’

  ‘He made it very clear.’

  ‘But you don’t want the bloody job if it means working with your father, I know that as well as you do.’

  ‘It’s not just about the job,’ Peter said.

  ‘Well, you’re not going to Ballygobackwards to work beside that prick, that’s for sure.’

  Peter laughed, he couldn’t help it. His eyes and head ached from the effort of not crying, but Aoife was so outraged, so furious, that it helped a little. She was always on his side. Since they were children, she’d always been brave. A fighter.

  ‘I don’t know what I’m going to do,’ he said.

  Aoife put her glass down. ‘Do you honestly think you killed an innocent man?’ she asked.

  It took him a moment to gather himself enough to answer. ‘I don’t know,’ he said at last. Aoife, irritated, opened her mouth to speak, but Peter held up a hand to forestall her. ‘I believe that Jason Kelly took Peggah Abbassi that night. But there’s no proof, Aoife. There’s nothing to prove Peggah was ever in his car except the word of an eleven-year-old boy who saw Kelly, if he saw him at all, from twenty metres away through a dirty window. And a possible partial numberplate. That’s not enough. I shot the man dead. His family are out for blood.’

  ‘He would have killed you. You came home that night and you told me he drove straight at you.’

  ‘He did.’

  ‘Well then.’

  ‘I told you. There’s no proof of that either, it seems. Nothing at the scene. And maybe I . . . god. Maybe there was something else I could have done. In the moment, I mean. I don’t know.’

  Aoife threw her hands up in the air. ‘What happened to cops sticking up for each other no matter what? Where’s the benefit of the doubt?’

  ‘It’s not that simple.’

  ‘Why? Why isn’t it that simple?’

  ‘Because I’m . . . the perception in the station is that I’m with Reilly, I’m on his side, and Reilly isn’t liked. Not widely and not by the right people.’

  Aoife pressed her lips together and shook her head. She took another drink, was silent for a long moment.

  ‘What is Des playing at?’ she asked.

  Fisher shrugged.

  ‘You have to call him,’ Aoife said.

  ‘Who? My father?’

  ‘Reilly. You need to call Reilly. If it’s his fault you’re in this mess, then he needs to pull whatever strings he can to get you out of it.’

  ‘Thing is, Aoife, I’m not sure he has any strings left.’

  Peter didn’t call Reilly that night. Instead he sat up with Aoife, drinking beer and eventually more whiskey, talking the situation over until they’d talked it to death, then going over old memories, spending the last half-hour or so laughing at Aoife’s efforts to suggest alternative careers for him. That degenerated fairly quickly, when the tears that he’d forced down all day finally won through. He drank a pint of water, went to bed, and fell asleep straight away.

  Peter woke to the sound of voices outside his bedroom door. He recognised Aoife’s immediately. Reilly’s, out of context, took a moment longer. Peter stumbled out of bed, made for the door then realised he was only wearing his jocks. He hopped clumsily into his jeans, pulled a T-shirt over his head and opened the door.

  ‘Aoife,’ he said.

  She had her back to him, was still wearing the shorts and tank top she wore to bed, the one that said Riots not Diets across the front. She’d opened the door to Reilly – Peter could just make out his face through the half-open door – but hadn’t invited him in.

  ‘It’s all right, Aoife,’ Peter said. He stepped forward, held the door over Aoife’s head.

  ‘Fine,’ she said. He knew by the look of her that she had a raging hangover. He was feeling the effects himself. His head was aching worse than the day before, and his mouth tasted like he’d eaten garlic and cheese chips and not brushed his teeth.

  Aoife gave Reilly a final unimpressed look, and disappeared into her bedroom.

  Reilly gave Peter a wry look. ‘Your sister?’ he asked.

  ‘Almost,’ Peter said. It said a lot about Reilly, that question. First of all, that he was perceptive enough to recognise that Aoife wasn’t his girlfriend, which was what most people thought when they first met them. And second, that for all that they’d worked together closely for three years now, Reilly knew fuck-all about Peter’s personal life.

  Peter had met Aoife at the boarding school his father had shipped him off to at the age of eight. When eight-year-old Aoife arrived six months later, she hadn’t been able to stop wetting the bed for the first month. Peter had helped her to hide it. He already knew how to hide the dirty linen under the bed until lunchtime, when you could sneak upstairs and change your sheets without any of the other kids noticing. By the time she found her feet, they were fast friends. They needed each other. The school wasn’t a bad place. It was small, due to the fact that there wasn’t much demand for a boarding school for primary-aged children in the country. The principal had founded the place with his wife, and they provided a kind of casual, all-purpose love, spread thinly across the forty or so students. This was augmented by the kindness and general decency of the small staff, so that there was just enough for the kids to manage, if not exactly thrive. It was the kind of environment that forged deep and lasting friendships among the children, who turned to each other for what no one else in their lives was willing or able to provide. Aoife was his
sister in every way that it counted.

  ‘She’s a friend,’ Peter said. ‘We’ve known each other since we were kids.’

  Reilly was nodding but was obviously intent on discussing other things. ‘Have you got a few minutes?’

  Peter hesitated, then held the door open. He wasn’t sure what he felt about Reilly showing up at his front door early in the morning. He wasn’t sure how he felt about any of it.

  Peter led Reilly into the living room. He expected to see the detritus of the night before – empty cans and whiskey glasses – but Aoife must have cleared it up. The air smelled stale though, and he opened the windows, let in the chilly morning air. They sat opposite each other, Reilly on the armchair near the empty fireplace, Peter on the arm of the couch. Reilly kept his coat on. He clearly wasn’t expecting to stay for long. He leaned forward, forearms on this thighs and hands loosely clasped together. His eyes held Peter’s.

  ‘I wanted to see how you were. Where things were with you.’

  ‘I presume Murphy told you,’ Peter said. Murphy had called Peter into his office as Reilly had left. There’d been no time for conversation, but Reilly surely knew the story.

  ‘Most of it, I think, but Murphy said something about giving you a chance. He didn’t elaborate.’

  Peter folded his arms. He felt a childish urge to keep the information to himself, fought the urge and won. ‘He said I had a chance if I took a transfer to Roundstone. My father’s a sergeant there. It seems he made some promises to Murphy, said he’d keep me on the straight and narrow. Murphy wants me to take the transfer. He gave me the impression that he’d do what he could to prevent a Section 98 if I go to Roundstone. If I don’t, I’m on suspension and I’m on my own.’

  Cormac was silent for a long moment. ‘You should take it,’ he said in the end. ‘Take the transfer, wait it out.’

  Peter felt a surge of fury. ‘I don’t have much choice, do I?’ he said. ‘If my choices are prison or a uniform in a two-man-band station, it’s not much of a choice, is it?’

  Cormac’s face stilled. Whatever he was feeling disappeared behind a professional veneer. ‘I want you to know that I believe that Jason Kelly abducted Peggah Abbassi. You did not shoot an innocent man.’

  ‘There’s no way to be sure of that, is there?’ Peter said. ‘Based on the evidence.’ Peter couldn’t keep the anger or the fear from his voice.

  ‘It’s true that Peggah couldn’t ID him,’ Reilly said. He was so calm, the way he was with suspects, with emotional witnesses. It made Peter want to punch him.

  ‘When he grabbed her from the street, she was watching her dog,’ Reilly continued. ‘Trying to teach him not to jump up on strangers, so when Kelly approached her, she didn’t look at him – she was looking down at her dog, feeding him treats, trying to keep the dog’s attention on her. Kelly hit her hard, bundled her into the boot, and took off. When he let her go on the side of the road it was very dark, and she was very frightened. He told her to keep her eyes closed if she wanted to live, and she did what she was told.’

  ’Well then,’ Peter said.

  ‘On the other hand,’ Cormac said, ‘I’m told that Fred Fletcher gave a very clear identification. He said he was one hundred per cent sure that Kelly was the man he saw.’

  ‘What happened to the video?’ Peter asked. ‘The video Fred took, the one I dropped into tech. I don’t understand why they haven’t managed to enhance the licence plate by now.’

  ‘They lost it,’ Reilly said.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Tech say they sent it with the usual secure courier to Dublin. Tech in Dublin say they never got it. The courier claims to have delivered it but the signature they have is a scrawl. The tablet’s disappeared.’

  Peter stared at Reilly, fighting rising panic. Evidence was lost sometimes, it happened, but this . . . didn’t feel like an accident.

  ‘It’s not my investigation anymore. I only know what I managed to learn working at home yesterday and in an hour at the station this morning. But I’m told the team searched Kelly’s house today. They found porn. Some downloads, subscriptions to online video sites. Kelly was smart enough to stay just this side of legal, but his preference was for young Middle Eastern or Asian girls. Sweet sixteen. Barely legal. That’s the marketing, but the girls look quite a bit younger.’

  Peter sat forward.

  ‘Kelly was a carpenter. He worked from time to time for different building companies around Galway. It seems he wasn’t well liked. He had a reputation for being difficult, argumentative. Which is probably why he didn’t have a steady job with any of the companies he worked for. They just called on him when they hit a particularly busy period. The rest of the time Kelly advertised on an online labour-hire website as a handyman and carpenter.’

  It was getting cold in the living room now. Peter got up and shut the windows. He could hear the sound of running water – Aoife having a shower.

  ‘I spoke to Peggah’s mother yesterday. Peggah is a gymnast,’ Reilly was saying. ‘She’s a member of the local gym club in Knocknacarra. I called the owner of the gym. She confirmed that Kelly carried out some carpentry work for her. She found him online and he was cheaper than the other quotes. Quite a bit cheaper. She claims, very forcefully, that Kelly was never on the premises when the kids were there. But I think she’s lying. She knows she can’t have anyone without a police check on the premises when kids are around, and I suspect she didn’t want to let a bit of red tape get in the way of the cheap quote.’

  Peter took a deep breath. Steadied himself mentally. ‘You’re saying he chose Peggah. That he knew who she was, followed her, planned the abduction.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Then I don’t understand. The Super seemed to think . . . he made it very clear that he thinks I fucked up.’

  Reilly stood, went to the windows and looked out. It was a cold, crisp day. Peter’s watch and phone were still in his bedroom. What time was it? Given how bright it was outside, it must be after nine a.m. Reilly should be at the station. He should be chasing down evidence, not sitting here in Peter’s living room. Soon he would have to go. Unlike Peter, he had work to do.

  ‘When you shot Kelly, he was unarmed. Peggah wasn’t in danger. You say that he drove the car at you, that you acted in self-defence when you pulled the trigger, but we haven’t been able to prove that. The tyre markings at the scene aren’t conclusive. Still, your word as a police officer, combined with the circumstantial evidence we’ve been able to gather so far, should, in my view, have resulted in complete exoneration.’

  Reilly turned to look at him. The running water in the bathroom next door stopped. The sound of the traffic outside seemed louder suddenly. ‘What are you saying?’ Peter asked.

  Reilly said nothing. He seemed to be reaching for a response, discarding it, and reaching again. He was obviously holding something back. Peter’s fear and frustration spilled over.

  ‘This is because of you, isn’t it, Reilly? You’ve pissed Murphy off because that’s how you are. You think you’re better than everyone else. Nobody likes that and you can’t blame them for it. I’m in this situation because you are out in the cold, and now I’m swinging out here with you. I’m a target because, like a fool, I’ve supported you.’

  The ugly words did nothing to relieve his frustration. He felt worse after he’d spoken; less like himself, more like a cheaper, meaner version. But he was still angry, and Reilly had played a role in all of this.

  ‘I can’t help you right now, Fisher. I can’t pull you out of this hole. You should take the transfer. It’s a good option. I might . . . I don’t know. Maybe I can fix this, maybe not.’

  ‘Christ,’ Peter said, as he half closed his eyes, rubbed his forehead with his right hand. ‘Please don’t. You’ll only make things worse.’

  Reilly made for the door. Spoke one more time before he left.

  ‘Don’t give up. You’re a good detective. If you can, take this job with your father, stick it out for a few
months. Give it a bit of time. All right? Just give it a bit of time.’

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Peter let his anger fuel him as he bundled his clothes and a few toiletries into a bag. He shovelled some cereal into his mouth, deflected Aoife’s attempts to draw him into conversation, and drove out of Galway at eleven a.m. on Tuesday morning. He couldn’t wait, couldn’t stay in Galway for a minute longer than he needed to, or his nerve might fail him and he’d never leave at all. But his hangover was brutal. It was painfully bright, one of those brisk sunny days November occasionally offered up. A reminder that winter wouldn’t last forever, though the worst of it lay ahead. The sun was high in the sky when he set off, and the roads were dry enough that he didn’t have to contend with ice, at least. Just the headache, and the nausea, and the occasional stray sheep. The N59 from Galway to Clifden was narrow, winding and scarred by the occasional deep pothole. A dangerous drive if he didn’t keep his wits about him. The road curled itself around craggy hills and turloughs, so clear that they perfectly reflected the blue sky above. As he drove out of Oughterard and the landscape opened up around him, Peter shifted in his seat, turned up the heating and the music, and kept his eyes off the view and firmly on the road ahead. Connemara was undeniably beautiful, but it held many bad memories.

  How could this have happened? A few days ago he’d woken up with Niamh beside him, a date on the cards, and all was right in the world. Now all of that was gone. He’d cancelled their dinner with the shortest of texts when he’d been in the midst of the case and hadn’t even considered calling her since. What could he say? They’d been at the flirty fun stage. Not the I just killed a man I may even have murdered an innocent man and by the way I might be prosecuted and also I hate my father because he fucked every woman who had the bad luck to pass his way while my mother was dying of cancer and how was your day stage.

  Peter reached the village at around lunchtime. Roundstone hadn’t changed. It was exceptionally pretty, all terraced houses overlooking the sea. There was a church, a couple of pubs, one convenience store and a boutique hotel that served the tourist trade. It didn’t have a hell of a lot else to offer, besides the boat ramp and, a couple of kilometres away, the beach at Gurteen Bay.